Tuesday, May 24, 2005

There goes the neighborhood

I am not an athlete. You know this. Everyone knows this. I announce it immediately--right after making clear my opinion of cats. This means that I don't ski or skate or bike. This means that I don't play anything that could remotely be considered a "sport," including lighthearted passtimes such as volleyball or, you know, catch.

Thanks to my dear friends Anne and Peter, though, I have found one exception. Bocce ball. I love bocce ball. I'm not even particularly good at it, but every so often the fates allign to make it seem like maybe I am. It's perfect. There's no running, no one throws anything at you, you don't have to catch, you don't have to hit a ball with a stick or anything remotely stick-like.

Imagine my shock then, to read that the proposed construction of bocce ball courts in Clayton has its residents up in arms. Who are these people? And why are they not terribly grateful and excited, one wonders? Instead, they're going around saying things like this:

"You just worry about what that does to your neighborhood. It brings in alot of people that don't obviously live here," she said. But, she added,"I have nothing against people playing bocce ball."

But perhaps I'm being unjust. It is a slippery slope, after all. It starts with people who don't obviously live there playing a friendly game of bocce and next thing you know they're smoking crack in your garden and corrupting neighborhood youth. And from there, really, can shuffleboard be far behind?